NAILS | It's All About the Chrome with Born Pretty Chameleon Mirror Nail Glitter Powders!

Thursday, August 25, 2016

These mirror nails are all the rage right now in the nail world and though we have seen those countless videos of people magically rubbing powder on their nails to get a truly reflective finish, you really won't believe it until you try it for yourself! There are some incredibly expensive chrome powders ($16.90 USD for 2.5g) and then there are the ones from Born Pretty that are just $1.99 for 1g of powder! The main question being, "Are the cheaper powders any good/better?" Born Pretty has been pretty awesome for me over the years and I shop with them religiously even though I work with them as a blogger too. They just have too many things I want to buy all the time!

I picked up four of the eight duochrome mirror powders (though now I realize I should have gotten them all!) and played it safe with my first experience by picking just ONE colour to try. I chose the shade 585, which is a teal to purple duochrome. If any of you decide to pick up these powders, either keep them in the bags they come in or label the jars with permanent marker because they are unlabeled otherwise!

For those that don't know how these powders work, to the extent of my knowledge, you start off ideally with a fully cured gel polish manicure wither it is by LED or UV. Chrome powders can work with regular polish with a few tweaks, but I used gel polish as I was not in the mood to adhoc a method of making this work when I had plenty of gel polish in my collection to use! I wanted to not have to fiddle with cure times, so I used Red Carpet Manicure's Gel Polish LED System with the colour Black Stretch Limo* (swatch here) as my base manicure. Once I had fully cured this with top coat, I gently rubbed 585 in vertical motions up and down my nail followed by a circular motion to get into the nooks and crannies (video of my first time trying this here!). Some nails seems to look more even than others, but the overall effect was VERY COOL!

Janelle from Elleandish has a great video comparing all of the Born Pretty powders as well as a comparison between these and the more expensive chrome powders. I had a bit of an idea what to expect and one thing I noticed was that the particles seemed chunkier than the pricier powders I had seen others work with giving my nails a more pixelated effect when viewed up close. At arm's length, my nails looked incredibly shiny to the point where strangers would ask where I had gotten them done!

One thing to note is that the powder does get everywhere and into the cuticle. I used a quick squirt of water to rinse off the powder which is not ideal as it can ruin the finish, but suggestions I have seen include liquid latex and scotch tape to pick up the powder so that will be something I will try the next time I do this because there will be a next time!

The powders weren't too hard to use, albeit messy, and it really was fun seeing that shiny finish come to life before your eyes! I already have the silver and gold chrome powders in my possession as well as some holographics on the way! If you do decide to purchase, don't forget to use the code UXL91 to save 10% on your purchase!